Bruins’ early doze costly vs. Rangers

Sunday

For one period, the Bruins regressed about 9,000 miles and two weeks in time, to their bland performance in the first two periods of their season opener in Prague.

After going down by two goals in the first period last night against the New York Rangers, the Bruins woke up and regained some composure. But coming back from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits took too much energy, and they didn’t have quite enough at the end to prevent a 3-2 loss at the Garden. The loss snapped their four-game winning streak.

It was the Rangers’ second big win in a row — they beat surging Toronto Thursday — after three consecutive losses.

That was the Rangers’ good news. The bad news is that the already injury-riddled Rangers lost winger Brandon Prust late in the second period when he was cut above the left eye by Gregory Campbell’s high stick behind the Boston net. Prust was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Reports were that his eye was not affected and that he’ll be OK.

“Obviously, it was unintentional,” Campbell said later. “You never want to see someone get hurt like that. It’s unfortunate.”

The B’s also lost defenseman Johnny Boychuk to an undisclosed injury after the first period. They went with just five defensemen the rest of the way.

Nathan Horton, who has shown up on the score sheet of every Bruins game so far, had a goal and an assist. Captain Zdeno Chara also had a goal, his second in as many games.

Goalie Henrik Lundqvist, a perennial thorn in the Bruins’ side, made 35 saves. He is now 14-4-2 lifetime against Boston, and he has a 1.39 goals against average (before last night) and four shutouts.

Tuukka Rask, getting his first start for the Bruins since the season opener, wound up with 27 saves after his semi-shaky start.

The Rangers jumped to a 2-0 lead on two fluky first-period goals. Artem Anisimov batted the first one past Rask out of midair during a power play with a questionably high stick (a review upheld the goal), and Alex Frolov got credit for the second one when his shot popped into the air, floated past the attempted glove-hand swipe of defenseman Mark Stuart and soared over Rask’s glove hand.

Anisimov’s goal was just the second power-play goal allowed this season by the Bruins in 17 times short-handed, and ended a streak of 14 straight kills. New York and Boston both finished 1 for 6 with the extra man.

“They were tough goals,” agreed defenseman Andrew Ference, “but we were outplayed in the first, and definitely a little flat compared to some of our other games. … Lucky goals or not, they outplayed us and we dug ourselves a hole. We definitely didn’t have a good first period.”

The first 20 minutes were a real drag. With only seconds remaining, the Bruins had won only one of three fights, failed to take advantage of a five-on-three power play, and had been outscored, 2-0, falling behind for just the second time since their opening loss in Prague.

To their great relief, Chara sliced the deficit when his blast from just above the left faceoff circle deflected past Lundqvist with 4.3 seconds left in the period while the B’s were enjoying another five-on-three advantage.

During the period, Stuart beat up Rangers troublemaker Sean Avery in the opening minutes, Shawn Thornton and New York’s Derek Boogard battled to a draw in a tussle that more closely resembled a waltz, and Prust decisioned Milan Lucic by sneaking in a couple of short right hands to the head while they were in a clinch.

Rask, conceding that he felt a little rusty but got stronger as the game progressed, admitted that surrendering two lucky goals wasn’t the best way for him to get back into the flow.

“That’s got to be the worst start you can imagine, I guess,” he said with a grin. “It’s tough to keep yourself in a zone when that happens and you get no shots, either.”

The teams traded second-period goals, Marc Staal coming out of the penalty box and scored on a breakaway just 48 seconds into the period, giving the Rangers a 3-1 lead, while Horton answered for the Bruins by snapping a wrist shot from the slot past Lundqvist at 12:27 and making it a one-goal game again.

David Krejci set up Horton with a blind, back-to-the-play backhand pass from the right-wing boards. It was a thing of beauty, and Horton made it count with that lightning-quick release. It was Krejci’s team-leading sixth assist of the season.

Bruins coach Claude Julien didn’t blame Rask for the loss, rather pointing the finger at the team as a whole for its slow start. The Bruins wound up outshooting the Rangers, 37-30.

“They had a couple of lucky goals, but those lucky goals probably wouldn’t have happened if we had had a better start,” Julien said. “I just felt we were a little slow out of the gate, second to the puck. It’s unfortunate because we seemed to get a little better after that, but it’s never easy to dig yourselves out of a hole in this league.”

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.